Published: October 5, 2023 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Pauline Studies 4 - The Church in the World - Part 11 | Scripture: Romans 1:15-32; 2 Corinthians 2:15-17
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father we do thank you for this time together time in your word time with brothers and sisters in the Lord would you pray that it would be edifying that it would be pleasing in your sight that
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it would be beneficial uh to to each of us and and to your church we pray that your spirit would guide us in our understanding and uh in
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our speech that we might um again understand the times and what the church is to do but we ask in Jesus name
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through this um trying to build as we go each week on the situation that modern evangelicalism faces in the world today
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postmodern posttruth post constantinian post raisin brand you know all the different uh all the the different posts that that we Face they're all
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real um real um and with every
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discussion the the the natural conclusion is well let's just give up and join a cloer or a monastery and and yet that's falling back into the
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same pattern that we find in Christ and culture that's falling back in the same responsive pattern that we see with those five neoran models that
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are simply the church in every age reacting one way or another to another to culture but in each of
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those culture is the driving force the church is responsive it is not proactive now the analysis of the
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current situation is fairly Universal among contemporary writers uh you can find myriads of books
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that talk that talk about the postculture and the fact that the church is no longer living in a constantinian age where it has a a role
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to play in the public forum and the public and government are still listening to the church they're not uh and everybody within you know modern
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most everybody within modern evangelicalism realizes so the diagnosis is is not original to me it's it should be apparent um just as we look out on
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the Western World Europe and the United States Canada the United States is actually uh far better off than the rest of Western civiliz ation in terms of the
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Vitality of the church and its remaining influence in the public forum but that is declining very very rapidly um within decades or within a
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decade there's a massive drop in the number of people who attend church who believe in God who who think that Christianity or any religion should have a role in the public forum all of the
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different polls that you know that Trace these things show that the the Cline that started around World War II was relatively slow up until the
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1990s and now it's plummeting like it's gone off a cliff and if you look at what is being taught in the public schools today you can't imagine the next
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generation of adults are going to be better off uh barring an outpouring of God's spirit which we we hope and pray uh will happen
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happen but if it does happen will it lead us back into the Paradigm of church and state church and culture relations that we
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have seen for 20 centuries or will we take it that way because the revivals that we can read of in
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history did not become political they didn't start out political they didn't become political at least during the Revival but revivals Never
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Last and somewhat like riab boam who who lost all of his father's gold and silver decided to replace it with bronze now that's what the church
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does it it replaces what God has done when God is no longer doing it then they we replace it with our imitations I think I mean it sounds
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harsh but I think that's an accurate description of Pentecostalism M trying to replace something that God didn't intend to last forever uh with something
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that is frankly quite fabricated um do we want Church influence cure well we don't have a choice and that's where I'm
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headed if God has created a new humanity and he has constituted that Humanity the temple which does anybody disagree that the church is the temple
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I mean it's least biblical um the temple is where God dwells it's the connection point between
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Heaven and Earth that's the meaning of Temple especially in the ancient world but it is essentially the meaning of Temple so if that's all true then we don't have a choice and
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that's what we're going to talk about tonight it's not so much um whether the church impacts culture it's culture it's how and is that its reason for
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being if it is what it is supposed to be it cannot help but impact the culture around it now the response of the culture around it may not be what the church had
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hoped in other words we can't guarantee that the influence of the church on culture will restore or reform culture culture might turn on the church in
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persecution right so what we're what we're what I'm trying to head to is that God has created a created a new he has created it's a new creation
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and in that new creation he's creating he's created a new Humanity in the man Jesus Christ I'm sorry quite all right what is
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I trying to think what
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Israel what did God really want from Israel what was the purpose of Israel other than just choosing his own people and having their own people other than I'm not I'm not know exists what was the purpose of
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Israel there's no short answer to that question you can look at it from a covenantal point of
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view that God was preserving the line of the woman right I mean you could look at it as as he was he was preserving a people
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through which the seed of woman would come the promised Messiah you could look at it from the perspective of the law that God graciously chose a people
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and gave to them his holy Commandments you could look at it from the standpoint of a witness that they were to be obedient to the statutes of the Lord in the presence
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of the Nations around them they were not actually commanded to proze that's that's they don't they have no Great Commission like we supposedly
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have um so they were a witness and yet they also they also failed and and Paul uses that of course to teach us that righteousness never was
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intended to come through the law be our purpose I don't see that our purpose is any different than Israel's yes and I think that to me that we're
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the people of God we've been grafted in to think that the church has a different purpose is to fall into that dispensational error of separating the the church from Israel something that
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Paul never does we are the unnatural branches that have been grafted into the one Olive Tree still only one Olive Tree okay so I think we can learn a lot in in
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much of what we do not necessarily imitating we don't imitate you don't imitate what was foreshadowing and prophetic but has now been
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fulfilled but you can learn from it and I think there's a tremendous amount that we learned from the Old Testament concerning what God's purpose is as to his witness but what Israel was not it
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was not a new creation it was part of the old creation there's no language in the Old Testament concerning contemporary
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Judaism contemporary Israel of the prophets whether Isaiah or Jeremiah or Malachi there's nothing that says you are the new Temple
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it speaks of the new Heaven and the new Earth as Earth as future and frequently tied in with the Messianic hope so they had that
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eschatology we talked about that we talked about Paul's eschatology we think of eschatology is sometime off in the future Paul saw it as mostly finished the eschatology of
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Israel is really more important than the eschatology of eschatology of Christianity okay because the esqu of Christianity all we are waiting on is the perusia the appearance of the Lord
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but the eschatology of Israel was looking for the consolation of the Israel of Israel and the glory of the Gentiles eschatology of Israel was looking for the coming of the seed of
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woman as well as the Seed of Abraham as well as the son of David okay so Jewish eschatology is more important than Christian eschatology because it teaches us what
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God intended to do and now has done so the difference between the church and Israel is that there's a new creation because of the resurrection and because of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
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there's a new Temple the shakina has returned just as it did in the Tabernacle and in Solomon's Temple now it has done so in the church so those
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two factors we talked about this at the beginning of of the the four sessions that we've done on Pauline studies the impact of the resurrection of Jesus
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Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to a Jew meant that Yahweh had returned to his people that the Messianic age had come and that he was
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now once again God now once again dwelling with his people dispensational to a certain
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do understand through the Jewish land is just that they put it sometime in the future they put it off in in the future yeah it's it's still Jewish which which doesn't make any sense why they spend so much time
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studying that because to them it has nothing to do with the church so you have a bunch of Christians that are studying what's going to happen after we're gone to the
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Jews I don't see any benefit in that yeah they don't see they do not see inaugurated eschatology although they're beginning to and that's where the progressive
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dispensationalists come in they begin to realize wait a minute Paul tells us this has taken has taken place so to go back to the diagnosis
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there's a tremendous amount of consistency and some very to me helpful and insightful writings both articles and
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books that are contemporary regarding the Contemporary situation we're going to talk about one of them tonight a theologian by the the name of Miroslav Wulf uh Croatian I
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believe or Serbian uh and I don't want to confuse those two I think he's one or the other you know you don't want to say they're all alike um because they're not but uh he once again he he diagnoses the
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problem in a very helpful and insightful way but like a doctor that can diagnose
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your illness they're not necessarily good at the prescription for your cure and in fact some of the Pres some of the prescriptions that they offer would be fatal to the patient so
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it's somewhat humorous to not so much humorous in a funny way more in a more in a a sad way you got to Laugh to Keep from Crying I rarely get through two-thirds
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of these of these books because after two-thirds they start getting into their solution and their solution will be things like um the church has lost its influence so it
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needs to lighten up on its Doctrine it's carrying too heavy a load in the you see the postmodern world is incapable of incapable of belief and so we need to back off things
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like the Trinity the atonement the resurrection just this started back in the 18th the 18th century we're we're too scientific to believe these things and
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so for the church to continue to preach such things makes it an an an archaic Relic in the modern world which
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frankly that's what it has become it's become it's quaint at at the best annoying at the worst um ignorant pretty much either way
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quaint ignorant or annoying ignorant we're nonscientific okay so for example um this this is a quote from a book that
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really impacted really impacted evangelicalism back in the early 90s it's a book called resident aliens has any of you seen it or read
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it um it's Stanley howas and William willimon um one little bit of trivia William
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willaman is from Greenville uh but th those two partnered on this um this book book resident aliens and I'm going to read a somewhat lengthy paragraph here but it again it just kind of
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encapsulates the encapsulates the diagnosis and the situation that Christianity faces in our day Christians are he's talking about
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how um modern and postmodern Christian Physicians and I don't mean Christian doctors I mean theologians and pastors
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who wrote and preached about okay here's what we need to do in this postmodern world that isn't capable of believing the doctrines that we we used to hold okay so Christians our theologians told
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us are in a rather embarrassing position of having a faith rooted in ancient parochial NE Eastern writings which present the life of an
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ancient parochial NE Eastern Jew named Jesus modern Christians stare at the life death and resurrection of Jesus across what the German philosopher
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lesing called The Ugly wide ditch of History cernus despite the church's efforts to silence him finally convinced us that the sun did not go around the
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earth and everything changed the cernic Revolution was the first we were led to believe seismic shift for the church everyone's world view had shifted to something called quote the modern world
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view the poor old church however was stuck with a legacy of a pre-scientific premodern worldview see there's the
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problem we needed to change move with the Scientific Revolution and then the enlightenment we need to realize we needed to realize that history doesn't
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matter that the the subjective um events of History do not dictate The Logical deductions of reason that's essentially
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Ling's ditch Ling's ditch was between anyone living in any given age and all that went that went before okay uh within the church within
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Christianity that means Doctrine and his especially historical especially historical theology now we can still have natural theology what we can understand with our
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own reason what we observe we can even still have we can even still have dogmatics but we can't have historical we cannot
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link our Doctrine to actual historical events because we all now know that history is purely subjective and there's no way of knowing that any of these things actually happened okay that's
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that's one of the enlightenment's great discoveries is that we weren't there duh okay and and so it SED seeds of doubt in all historical knowledge and
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especially in Christianity which is a propositional religion it's based on events and it's based on teachings and prophecies that
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actually we believe happened historically but that was a casualty we can't we can't expect modern people to
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believe these believe these Legends they're unscientific and therefore we we need to jettison them and we need to find the core of the
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Christian message which is of course today God is love in the 19th century is God helps the poor God frees the slaves
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God doesn't like people drinking you know it's it's it's a social gospel but we have to find a way in order to keep Christianity Alive Now why we want to I don't know but we want to keep Christianity on life support and so we
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have to find some other source of V Al ity than historical theology we got to lighten up on the doctrine okay and that's that's one of
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the solutions again diagnose the problem yeah then prescribe The Cure no another one the church has lost its influence so
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we need to accommodate and acclimate this is the modern wokeness which frankly we use that term now uh and and it was what 2016 word of the
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year no it was post truth I don't know if wokeness has made it to the word of the year but probably will this year okay but that's not going to last long that word something else is going to come behind it that's also an indication
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of the rapidity with which things are changing what was I mean what was important a year ago is forgotten this year okay but the the church is trying
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to keep up with all this and trying to get in with it and and gr woke and black lives matter and all the all the little issues this this is another indication of how culture continues to drive the
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argument dictating the terms and not only formulating the questions but even the answers that the church gives and and again I cannot believe
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that Paul ever expect or ever desired that to happen that the church would be the cart and culture would be the horse but that is what has happened happened
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so we need to acclimate we need to we need to assimilate and accommodate culture or there's another view the church has lost its influence good it should never have had any to
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begin with so let's all Retreat into our families into our churches into our cloysters let's have nothing to do with the world in fact let's create a world
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of our own like they've done in the monasteries like they've done in the cloysters maybe not adopting the dress of the Amish but otherwise the don't touch the
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world attitude is now a a very viable segment of Evangelical Christianity is this isolationism a form of that isolation is
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called confessionalism and we'll talk a little bit hopefully about that this evening this is not to say that this is not the reason that I necessarily that I believe that confessionalism is not
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correct but confessionalism is a form of isolationism it is a form of circling the wagons it is a form of trying to maintain Purity
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maintain Purity mechanically so it it is a form of isolationism we're going to build a monastery of confessions and that's where we're going to live and all the brothers will sign the vow of
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confessionalism do you see the analogy it's not a literal building but it is a figurative building building and it is we pulled up the drawbridge and we've shut down the walls
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or built up the walls not only around the world but also around all the apostate Christians who have abandoned sound Doctrine that's very much like the
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kumran community okay we are the true Jews well that's what you hear now among confessionals we're the truly reformed the TR because we have signed we adhere
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to this confession or that confession um and and and the ramp parts are not consistent for example you can join the
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um something something of confessing evangelicals help me out here the alliance thank you the alliance I kept thinking Association I knew that was wrong um maybe I was thinking of the abbreviation of it I don't
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know you can join because I looked it up and we've considered it because it was when when the elders have tried to to reach out to other reformed
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churches we have been uniformly and consistently rebuffed on the issue of confessionalism to the point that we started to started to waver and considered you know is this
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really worth the isolation um just because we won't sign a confession but then I looked it up and I realized it doesn't matter what confession confession you
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sign it could be 1689 it could be Westminster it could be helic belgic or even Greek even Greek Orthodox it doesn't matter you just have to choose one like I that doesn't really
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work you know you you your your ramp parts are made of in some cases mutually exclusive
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materials okay you you can't really build a solid wall with all the different you know made out of a patchwork confessional patchwork confessional quilt and as with so many other
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parachurch organizations that begin with good motives they have also started to accept teachings that are that are
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not solid um you mentioned it before idious in to from say that again it's little
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Insidious in nature kind of our advocation of validating things uh yes it is we somehow hold this idea that that a wolf
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any against had that conversation with confessionals for years now and I and I have asked them do you really think that a heretic wouldn't sign that's the first thing he'll do we
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we know that Satan masquerades as an angel of Light that his ministers are do the same it's like I if I'm coming in in
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order to undermine and Destroy and and the only thing I have to do to get in and actually to gain the trust is to sign a
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document of course they're going to do that so it is a false security and in that respect it's very Insidious because that's what we want we want a we want a sense of security we want a sense that's
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why we have TSA that's why we that's why our what is it Eighth Amendment rights are violated every time we fly or go to a National Monument because we want security and they were the same way in
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the church what we will give up for security is sometimes infuriating um and I think confessionalism that's how I view it so the diagnosis are all consistent things
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are not are not we might say things are not good for the church in the modern world but if we view it from a different
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perspective we might actually conclude that things have never been better that being freed from the constantinian Yoke and the sense of of
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mission that has governed the church in the West for hundreds at least hundreds of years and that is the mission to change the change the culture if we can be freed from that we
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might find that it has never been better situation in the world has never been better for the church than it is now again that that's counterintuitive but it's only counterintuitive because the
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church has lived at that constantinian model for 2,000 years and even with the the the obvious evidence that that model has broken
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has broken down that the church in the West has zero influence on public policy now I'm not saying in every location and you know we're still in the Bible Belt but
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we're losing it here as well I mean it's amazing just in the time the 30 years plus that I've lived in South Carolina it is amazing what was and
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isn't anymore not that the things that were like the blue laws should have ever been but they were and where did they come from they came from the influence
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of Christianity okay they're gone and all those things are gone okay so um how much longer
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much longer until when will South Carolina the South Carolina of the future look like the California of the present okay now whenever that happens
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California will look like the Soviet Union of the past but you they're they're now go like this they're actually more like that ahead of us on the on the downgrade but we're on the
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downgrade too I mean does anybody deny that the Bible Belt is not what it once was okay in the90s Michigan still had BL
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okay that's not what I want to say this is the only church that I know that doesn't have like a catechism class where the new M look a new members class
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where you're showing the sign you agree with all the bullet points there's like 20 Pages you agree with our creation
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stance our government stance our esy stance which is pretty big right now our
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baptism don't that that is that is a form of confessionalism when you have that kind of a membership where anybody who comes needs to
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needs to um tow the line and sign on the dotted line once again it's it's it provides no real security and it gives
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people what's the word it almost inculcates apathy towards personal study you know you you you got everything fine you signed everything's
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fine you as long as you adhere to what this church teaches you're okay I don't see any difference between that Catholicism okay I don't I mean as far
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as you you just basically dumb down the congregation and that's not why we're here um and I hope to I hope to God that
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we never go there I really do do do do we we l
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point I lament I do not lament personally the loss of influence over the culture I do not because I do not as I as I read history and I've been next week um well not next week by the way
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we're not meeting next week two weeks um uh I'm I'm sure that would have all gotten out there but we're going to be in Western North Carolina next week so
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um but I do not lament that because the more I read of history and especially American history okay because next week's or two week's notes are are
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going to spend a good deal of time in the Revolutionary War period with political preaching and it's just uncanny how similar it is to today or how similar
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today is to them okay but that's really no different than the politics of of the 17th century in England or the politics of the Reformation era because
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Christianity and pol Politics the the separation of church and state was never thought of in fact they were trying to join them ever closer until the
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Enlightenment and as the church and state were driven apart by Enlightenment philosophy deism and then rank atheism the church has fought to hold
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on please let me let me still be in the game I Rejoice at the church being out of the of the game I I wish the church would realize
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it was never supposed to be in the game to begin with it has its own game to play it's not a game either it has its own mission its own voice and it can
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never speak the voice of the world without adopting the heart of the world okay because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks both individually
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and ecclesi ecclesiastically so no I I don't L I don't personally lament but there's a great deal of L mation in modern Western modern Western evangelicalism over the loss of
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political influence and we are grasping at such broken reads to try to hold on to that ancient position of of pseudo
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power and influence that it is to me it's it's just it makes me want to wretch it does okay so I and and
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unfortunately the vast majority of of professing Christianity is going to continue on that ship of constantinian ism until they sink with it and that that is again
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historical that the church Christians professing Christians will hold on to the Paradigm that they are comfortable with to the to the model that seems to
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ease their fears and Grant them a sense of stability until it all falls apart like it did in World War I and then what comes after after that is almost um
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dystopian in terms of what went before during the Victorian era what came after World War I was downright dystopian in Europe the philosophies the music the
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art they just lost all sense of compass and that's because their Compass was never pointing in the right direction anyhow okay so the diagnosis is there
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but the prescriptions have been um just
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awful nuban Leslie nuban says he says our problem is not that the gospel appears as something foreign to our culture it's that it has become so
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totally domesticated within our culture that its power to exercise a radically critical function is in question Leslie nigan was a 20th century missionary he
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was involved in the world Council of churches I think one of the few evangelicals that remained in that body he recognized the the drift of
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Western evangelicalism while it was still in a sense
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recoverable but he also recognized that it wasn't something worth recovering I I highly recommend his the gospel El in a pluralistic society and his signs amidst the rubble those two are well any he
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he's good I mean his writings are very well done very well reasoned and his thought is thought is um consistently
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um consistently biblical do you see Islam as being a stronger power than Christianity because it seems it seems like Muslim right now have historically
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been Muslim for longer than Maybe Christian I seen I personally Muslim Islam um I I personally and I I mean I'm
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not a prophet uh so you know and I'm not the Bible Answer Man or whoever that Martin Marty or whoever that was does anybody remember the Bible answer man no um and I'm certainly not the political
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answer man but I think that Islam has a couple things that will prevent it from ever being a significant influence in the West the West West uh first of all we ain't going to live that way and Western women they's
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not going to live that way there's nothing that Islam has to offer that the West would find attractive secondly uh God has protected the world because most of the Islamic
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nations are banana republics they couldn't they can't even build a a decent foot Bridge okay they're I don't know why it is but they're they cannot get along
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with themselves um they're constantly at War they're kind of like the ancient Greeks they never could have an Empire because they couldn't get over fighting their neighbor cities okay and that's the way
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the Islamic world is so I just don't perceive a whole lot of threat I don't think there needs to be I think we're doing all the damage internally because we have embraced
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modernism and we like it and I like it modernism provides we talked about this with the technology in the the Industrial Revolution um we have some
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amazing benefits that we have gained over the last 200 years Medical Science travel standard of living uh cost of living uh longevity literacy all of
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these things have improved I would maintain that much of them had their impetus through especially Protestant especially Protestant Christianity but I do agree with
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um cotton Ma the Puritan the New England preacher who said that um that uh piety or purtis puritanism but piety begat
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prosperity and the daughter has consumed the mother there was a lot of wisdom in that statement and that was in this early 1700s if he were to come back today and
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look around there would be very little evidence that there was a mother as far as piety is concerned so um you you know we do benefit and and that makes letting go of modernism very very very
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almost impossible and I'm not sure that it's required because modernism is providential right nothing has happened apart from the purpose of God if we
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believe in the sovereignty of God then we cannot say that you know this should never have happened we we need to go back to the horse and buggy days okay because it was much purer then
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right we need to get electricity out of our house shut down the internet well Charter did that for us today hey praise Charter um that's what
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they're trying to do is redeem us I don't want to be redeemed I don't want to be redeemed I want to check my email okay yeah we are and we all know that we are um we are in meshed with
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modernity but we we've also been born in this era and so to to cancel it like cancel culture we want to cancel modernity that's one of the bogus remedies that
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you'll find in some of these books Neo anabaptism or anabaptists they want to go back to the living you know the the anabaptists lived the way they live
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because everywhere else they tried to kill them it wasn't like they got together and said let's leave all of our towns and go live in the Woods no they were chased there okay I'm
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sure if they had their brothers they would have gone back into Geneva into a warm home they couldn't you know so you don't want to imitate people who were running for their
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for their lives when we're not running from our lives so that's again one of the accurate diagnosis not the correct prescription and and time and time again
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you see this not um you know you'll see that I'm that I'm quoting um Miroslav wul I do it very carefully in the notes okay because he
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clearly he actually adopts universalism incredibly ecumenical but he has in in his analysis of the church's problem he
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really has his finger on the pulse of the message of the church and why it is so impotent in the
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world today he I think I agree with him in the sense that The Church Must if it is the church must
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have a message in the world today the quote at the beginning of this week's notes is from vul he says but the Christian faith as a prophetic religion is either a way of life or a parody of
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itself well it is a parody of itself in the modern the modern world and in fact much of modern evangelicalism is an absolute farce it is so clearly linked to
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political agenda as to render it laughable in the eyes of the world it is so clearly associated with a particular agenda that it could not possibly be
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taken seriously by any other than the choir by any other than those who have already emide that political agenda but it has no critical voice in the world
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today and that's exactly what God has given it through the Holy Spirit the spirit of truth that critical voice that will will either by God's
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grace initiate a restoration of culture never complete because the pattern of this world is passing away in every gener God is Not reforming the world
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through the church but there are times when the influence of theur church has been saltier than others and it has served to preserve the corruption and in
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some cases it seems even to reverse it a little bit okay or that voice brings forth the Wrath of the world against the church
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and we enter into a period of persecution it's one or the other but the voice the point is the voice never changes the message never
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changes and the message is never dictated by the culture it is dictated by the Scriptures it is dictated by truth which is Jesus
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Christ the Christ the temple Remains the point where God dwells but in the church that dwelling is now dispersed throughout the world so
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that every believer and every church is that point of contact Between Heaven and Heaven and Earth the church needs to regain that
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understanding Believers need to go back to reading to reading Paul within a ecclesiology in mind we've
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mind we've spent I think long enough reading the scripture for ourselves for our own individual benefit
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discipleship sanctification all of these things that we look at as as our respon our individual place and relationship to God what has been lost in Western
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evangelicalism is a understanding of the church Paul would never have advocated the individualism that pervades the church
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today he he rarely talks about anybody individually unless they're doing something really bad okay what he talks about time and time again letter after
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letter after letter is the church the fullness of him who fills all in all okay so where we're headed with all of this you know like I said last week that
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that was really kind of the climax that if there is a new creation there is a new Temple because the old creation was itself a temple into which God placed
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his image man now we have a new Temple which is patterned as the writer of Hebrew says after the Heavenly not the one on earth made by
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human hands but the reality in heaven and our image of God is Jesus
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Christ but now because he the fullness of dwelleth the deity dwelt in him bodily through his death Resurrection Ascension and then his sending of the
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Holy Spirit we are now restored images of God in his restored Temple so that's if you read the Old Testament and you begin to
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understand what the temple meant you meant you realize that people first of all had to go up to the temple to meet with God
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but then you when you read the Psalms you realize the faithful wanted not only to go up to the temple but to stay there one thing I have asked the
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Lord that I may dwell in the in the house of the Lord forever okay and because that is where God dwelt so if we come to understand what
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the church is and I don't just mean a building I certainly don't mean a building I mean the community un of Believers as the temple then the Holy Spirit Will begin
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to renew our mind and give us that same heart that David had now we know David committed many sins and some of them really bad
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but he also by God's own witness had a heart after the Lord so Lord so somehow our sinful remaining nature in
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the flesh is compatible with us being temples of the Holy Spirit not willingly Paul makes that clear in 1 Corinthians six the holy
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spirit is spirit is not permitting us to continue to sin but we also know that we do sin and when we do sin we don't cease to be the Temple of the holy spirit so we have
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this Paradigm of a new creation a new Humanity a new Temple that is the church what's its
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what's its purpose well wul mentions the Christianity as a prophetic religion and this is this is where and I hope to kind of finish this out in the rest of this class this is where I think
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vul provides a tremendous amount of insight into the not only the circumstances and that's not what we're talking about the circumstances of the world anymore but the nature of
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Christianity as a religion in the world now he also adds in Judaism and Islam but he talks about Christ religions being either
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being either prophetic or
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religions are very individual in Focus Christian Christianity has been mystical by turns in different eras in the Medieval Age there was much
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spoken of and written about the beatific Vision that you could attain to the vision of the of the Holy the beautiful vision of God in this life by
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contemplation by self abnation giving giving away things asceticism devot yourself to fasting in prayer husbands and wives would separate
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and go into monasteries and convents devoting themselves to a contemplative life in order to gain that Vision that was the goal okay uh Thomas Aus the
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imitation of Christ came out of that pietistic fervor okay um the the what are they call the modern modern devout yeah in the in the um 15th
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century and on right be what he was he was Modern yeah he was Modern devout uh the the Brethren of the common life was another group in in uh Belgium in the
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Netherlands that they were advocating uh I mean you you read what they're writing and like this is right this is good and especially when you read it against the backdrop of medieval
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scholasticism and the medieval papacy and you think this is really good and it probably added fuel to the fire of the Reformation but it was purely
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individual my heart before God um and again that kind of personal piety had been lost in the in the corporate Christendom of Europe of the Middle Ages
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so it was a rediscovery but now that's all you hear about my personal you know have you accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior okay he like my my what is he my
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valet you know you know my personal Lord he is Lord and Savior he's not my personal one you know but the idea of personal your personal devotion do you
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spend an hour in prayer do you know did you do your devotions today now I'm not saying anything against devotions please don't I've had that before people get upset because they think they're doing
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it right and then I somehow I'm saying they're not doing it right that's that's not the point devotion is a part of all this but if it's the end in itself then you have entered into a mystical
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religion and in a mystical religion the goal is goal is your association with God so the mystical religion encourages
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escapism an attaining of what again the medieval Scholars call the beatific Vision Without a subsequent return to the humdrum mundane life of the world
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Hinduism is like this Hinduism is a mystical religion um monasticism pism is spell as well as contemporary individualism they all emphasize the
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individual's achievement of this of a higher blessing entering in you hear that entering in uh What's the phrase further further up
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further up further in or something like that or um Oswald Chambers the My Utmost For His Highest you know these things you you read them and like okay the kzk movement Andrew Murray was very big into
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the kzk movement Second Blessing you know entering into a higher plane of devotion and relationship with the Lord it all sounds
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great but there's no return there's no purpose to it there's no edification there's no benefit to the
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church or to the world it's all about me me getting in there but according to Paul I'm already
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there I have have already been accepted in the Beloved and seated with him I have been given every spiritual blessing in the in the heavenlies you see my point we're trying
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to attain what has already been attained for us and what we're sacrificing in that that search for personal devotion and that beatific vision is we're
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sacrificing true witness and Mission so wul is I think very correct in pointing out that Christianity is and
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has always been a prophetic religion a prophetic religion is one that
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um not only returns to the world but does so intentionally now as to the mystical
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religion he quotes um a 19 Century early 20th century Islamic um author philosopher one that has been
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quoted by many people because he's more he's kind of like I know being Islamic you think oh I can't listen to an Islam islamist but you know Islam has had some brilliant people philosophers scientists
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doctors you know and I I hope you don't be become offended that I'm quoting one in the notes but he says the Mystic does not wish to return from the Repose of unitary experience and even when he does
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return as he must his return does not mean much for mankind at large this was a major fault of the
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charismatic movement and that is it's it's all about me really that now I have my spiritual tongue my prayer language it's now called okay no one else understands me
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but God but God does problem does problem is God didn't want that kind of a relationship ship he wants others to understand him
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through us the Mystic doesn't want to return the prophet can't help but return the prophetic religion cannot cloer cannot
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go into a monastery that's what I've been trying to emphasize even though it seems like when we look at the Contemporary situation the only solution is to do just that you cannot do that
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without abandoning the essence of Christianity which is thus sayeth the Lord okay the prophetic voice is the essence of the True
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Religion whether it was in Israel or in the church and so the prophet the prophetic voice cannot be silenced so the characteristic of a
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prophetic religion um see if I can find this quote vul prophetic religions aim to trans form the world in God's name rather than
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to flee from the world into God's arms as do mystical religions okay we aim to con to to con I wouldn't say conform or change but
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confront we the prophet confronts with the word of God in the name of God that is the function of the prophet and so the prophetic religion is
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self-consciously confrontational but never confrontational on the world's terms the church in the west today is
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confrontational but always in reaction to the to the world we're not confronting the world with the truth of Jesus Christ I'm not saying universally there are still many who are preaching the gospel but by and
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large Western evangelicalism is characterized by its confrontational nature on issues of social and political
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concern I think we spend a lot of time talking about transform the world right yeah that's why I say we confront it if by God's grace the confrontation is met
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by his Spirit then there is transformation if by his Providence it is not then it's met with either opposition or
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opposition or persecution but the common denominator is confrontation does that make sense it's not confrontation with an agenda I don't know that continuing to preach the
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gospel is going to ignite a Revival in Greenville I have no way of knowing that no one has any way of knowing which is why I think Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4 it is to be expected
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of a steward that he be found faithful that's it it's not up to me it does matter yes I mean and that you know I I I agree with you it doesn't matter
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and it really has to stop mattering because in order for it to stop mattering we must put our trust entirely in God's Providence and his sovereignty
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why does it matter well because I have children and grandchildren and I don't want them to grow up in a world different than I grew up I don't want them to grow up in the world I did grow up in but I don't want
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them to grow up in one that's worse okay it matters because we have dual citizenship which is our next lesson actually we are in this world we are
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citizens of the United States of America also of South Carolina okay so we we of all people should understand dual citizenship because we have it in our
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country but we are first and foremost citizens of the kingdom of Jesus Christ and yet it is very hard to walk by faith and not by sight why does it
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matter so much these political and social issues because we're scared we're afraid that our way of life is going to end well you know what lots of people's
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lives have changed the their manner of Life their way of life and they have been faithful through it read Fox's Book of Mark of Mark or just read the history of the church
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read the alenes read about the the anabaptists read about the Puritans read about the Baptists you know read you could read about any number of people who were devout and
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consistent faithful even though their way of way of life changed because we're never guaranteed our way of life what we are
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guaranteed is of change but but the reason it matters so much is that we want to cling again to that constantinian model where we can have a say in determining what our world will
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be like well before you misinterpret me because of God's Providence as Americans we do have a
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say we are citizens of the United States we can vote we can have conversations about politics we can even campaign for
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politicians but that's no part of the church or its purpose in the world and we must be very careful that either as a church or as indiv individual Believers we do not either
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betray or abandon the truth as it is in Jesus Christ in order to advance a political or social social
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agenda that we cannot